"Success Education's Most Respected Researcher, Writer and Teacher."

NAPOLEON HILL

In this video Hill talks about meeting his mentor, the richest man in the world, Andrew Carnegie

Napoleon Hill's Biography

Napoleon Hill was born in a one-room cabin in the Appalachian town of Pound in Southwest Virginia. Hill's mother died when he was eight years old, and his father remarried two years later.

At the age of 15, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County, Virginia. He later used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon he had to withdraw for financial reasons.

Hill considered the turning point in his life to have occurred in the year 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous and successful men, to interview the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. At the time, Carnegie was one of the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and achieve. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie asked him if he was up to the task of putting together this information, to interview or analyze over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.

As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F. W. Woolworth, William Wrigley, John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Jennings Randolph. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As a result of Hill's studies via Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie, published initially in 1928 as a study course called The Law of Success.

The Achievement formula was detailed further and published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.Hill later called his personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement", and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony to be important contributing elements to this philosophy. Hill claimed throughout his writings that without these foundations upon which to build, successful personal achievements are not possible.

He contrasted his philosophy with others and thought that the Achievement Philosophy was superior. He felt that it was responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries.

Negative emotions such as fear, selfishness and others, had no part to play in his philosophy. Hill considered those emotions to be the source of failure for unsuccessful people.

The secret of achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, but it was never explicitly identified. Hill felt discovering it for themselves would provide readers with the most benefit.

He presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers in order to make them ask themselves, "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, 98% of people had few or no firm beliefs, and this alone put true success firmly out of their reach.

One of Hill's most moving stories was about his own son, Blair. He tells how his son was an inspiration to him, because although Blair was born without ears, without any normal hearing organs at all, even though his doctor told Hill that his son would probably never be able to hear nor speak, Blair grew up to be able to hear and speak almost normally. Hill tells how his son, in his last year of college, picked up the manuscript of chapter two of Think and Grow Rich, discovered Hill's secret for himself and went on to be an inspiration for hundreds and thousands of people who could not hear nor speak.

Think and Grow Rich remains the top best-seller of Napoleon Hill's books - a perennial best-seller after 70 years (BusinessWeek Magazine's Best-Seller List ranked Think and Grow Rich as the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was first published). Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell’s A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List.Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, proving that the secret of Achievement is still highly sought-after by modern Americans.

Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles using the Philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every American.

Napoleon Hill's 17 Principles of Success

--- Success and progress towards achieving your goals in life begin with knowing where you are going. Any dominating idea, plan, or purpose held in your conscious mind through repeated effort and emotionalized by a burning desire for its realization is taken over by the subconscious and acted upon through whatever natural and logical means may be available. Your mental attitude gives power to everything you do. If your attitude is positive, your actions and thoughts further your ends. If your attitude is negative, you are constantly undermining your own efforts. The starting point of all human achievement is the development of a Definite Major Purpose. Without a definite major purpose, you are as helpless as a ship without a compass.

Principle #2 - Establish a Mastermind Alliance

--- A mastermind alliance consists of two or more minds working actively together in perfect harmony toward a common definite objective. Through a mastermind alliance you can appropriate and use the full strength of the experience, training, and knowledge of others just as if they were your own. No individual has ever achieved success without the help and cooperation of others. The value of "gathering together those of a like mind" is self-evident. A group of brains coordinated in a spirit of harmony will provide more thought energy than a single brain, just as a group of electric batteries will provide more energy than a single battery.

Principle #3 - Assemble an Attractive Personality

--- A Positive Mental Attitude is the right mental attitude in any given situation. Courtesy is your most profitable asset… and it is absolutely free! Emotions are nothing but reflections of your mental attitude, which you can organize, guide, and completely control. Your personality is your greatest asset or your greatest liability because it embraces everything you control ...your mind, body, and soul. To be happy, make someone else happy!

Principle #4 - Use Applied Faith

--- Faith is awareness of, belief in, and harmonizing with the universal powers. Faith is a state of mind which must be active not passive, to be useful in achieving lasting success. Close the door to fear behind you and you will quickly see the door of faith open before you. Fear is nothing more than a state of mind, which is subject to your own direction and control. Faith will not bring you what you desire, but it will show you the way to go after it for yourself.

Principle #5 - Go the Extra Mile

--- Strength and struggle go hand in hand. Render more and better service than you are paid for, and sooner or later you will receive compound interest from your investment. The end of the rainbow is at the end of the second mile. The quality of the service rendered, plus the quantity of service rendered, plus the mental attitude in which it is rendered, equals your compensation. The more you give, the more you get.

Principle #6 - Control Your Attention

--- Keep your mind ON the things you want and OFF the things you don't want! It is much easier to focus your attention on something you believe will happen than on something you believe is unlikely. Controlled attention is the act of coordinating all the faculties of your mind and directing their combined power to a specific end. Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy your mind at the same time. Independence starts with self-dependence.

Principle #7 - Inspire Teamwork

---There is no record of any great contribution to civilization without the cooperation of others. Enthusiasm is contagious and teamwork is the inevitable result. A good football team relies more on harmonious coordination of effort than individual skill. Most people will respond more freely to a request than they will to an order. Helping others solve their problems will help you solve your own.

Principle #8 - Learn From Adversity and Defeat

--- Everyone faces defeat. It may be a stepping-stone or a stumbling block, depending on the mental attitude with which it is faced. Failure and pain are one language through which nature speaks to every living creature. You are never a failure until you accept defeat as permanent and quit trying. Edison failed 10,000 times before perfecting the electric light bulb. Don't worry if you fail once. Every adversity, every failure, and every unpleasant experience carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit which may prove to be a blessing in disguise.

Principle #9 - Cultivate Creative Vision

--- Creative imagination has its base in the subconscious and is the medium through which you recognize new ideas and newly learned facts. Synthetic imagination springs from experience and reason; creative imagination springs from your commitment to your definite purpose. Imagination recognizes limitations. Creative vision sees no limitations. Your imaginative faculty will become weak through inaction. It can be revived through use. The man who dipped a chunk of ice cream in chocolate and called it "Eskimo Pie" made a fortune for the five seconds of imagination it took to create the idea!

Principle #10 - Maintain Sound Health

--- To maintain a Positive Mental Attitude and develop a healthy mind and body, you must conquer fear and anxiety. Anything that affects your physical health also affects your mental health. A Positive Mental Attitude is the most important quality for sound mental and physical health. Exercise produces both physical and mental buoyancy. It clears sluggishness and dullness from body and mind. If you haven't the willpower to keep your physical body in repair, you lack the power of will to maintain a positive mental attitude in other important circumstances that control your life.

Principle #11 - Budget Your Time and Money

---Tell me how you use your time and how you spend your money, and I will tell you where and what you'll be ten years from now. Take regular inventory of yourself to learn how and where you are spending your time and money. The secret of getting things done is: DO IT NOW! Time is too precious to be wasted on arguments and discontent. Some mistakes can be corrected, but not the mistake of wasting time. When time is gone, it's gone forever.

Principle #12 - Use of Cosmic Habitforce

--- It takes a habit to replace a habit. All of your successes and failures are results of habits you have formed. The orderliness of the world of natural laws gives evidence that they are under control of a universal plan. For every result there is a cause, and results are brought about through the use of cosmic habitforce. First you get a habit, then it gets you.

Principle #13 - Create Personal Initiative

---It is better to act on a plan that is still weak than to delay acting at all. Procrastination is the archenemy of personal initiative. Personal Initiative: is contagious succeeds where others fail creates work creates opportunity creates the future creates advancement Procrastinators are experts in creating alibis. Personal initiative is the inner power that starts all action.

Principle #14 - Build a Positive Mental Attitude

--- A Positive Mental Attitude is the single most important principle of the science of success, without which you cannot get the maximum benefit from the other sixteen principles. Success attracts success and failure attracts more failure. Your mental attitude is the only thing over which you, and only you, have complete control. A Positive Mental Attitude attracts opportunities for success, while a Negative Mental Attitude repels opportunities and doesn't even take advantage of them when they do come along. A positive mind finds a way it can be done... a negative mind looks for all the ways it can't be done.

Principle #15 - Control Your Enthusiasm

--- To be enthusiastic-act enthusiastically! Enthusiasm is to progress toward success, as gasoline is to a car's engine. It is the fuel that drives things forward. Enthusiasm stimulates your subconscious mind. By feeding your conscious mind with enthusiasm, you impress upon your subconscious that your burning desire and your plan for attaining it are certain. Enthusiasm is a state of mind. It inspires action and is the most contagious of all emotions. Enthusiasm is more powerful than logic, reason, or rhetoric in getting your ideas across and in winning over others to your viewpoint.

Principle #16 - Enforce Self-Disciple

--- Self-discipline is the process that ties together all your efforts of controlling your mind, your personal initiative, positive mental attitude and controlling your enthusiasm. Self-discipline makes you think before you act. The subconscious has access to all departments of the mind, but is not under the control of any. If you don't discipline yourself, you are sure to be disciplined by others. Without self-discipline, you are as dangerous as a car running downhill without brakes or steering wheel.

Principle #17 - Think Accurately

--- Thoughts have power, are under your control, and can be used wisely or unwisely. Accurate thinkers accept no political, religious, or other type of thought, regardless of its source, until it is carefully analyzed. Accurate thinkers are the masters of their emotions. Accurate thought involves two fundamentals. First you must separate facts from information. Second you must separate facts into two classes? The important and unimportant. Accurate thinkers allow no one to do their thinking for them.

17 Ways Rich People Think Differently Than Poor People

(#1) Rich people believe they create their life; poor people believe life happens to them.(#2) Rich people play the money game to win; poor people play the money game to lose.(#3) Rich people are committed to being rich; poor people want to be rich.(#4) Rich people think big; poor people think small.(#5) Rich people focus on opportunity; poor people focus on obstacles.(#6) Rich people admire other rich and successful people; poor people resent successful rich people.(#7) Rich people associate with positive successful people; poor people associate with negative people.(#8) Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their values; poor people don't.(#9) Rich people are bigger than their problems, poor people are smaller than their values.(#10) Rich people are excellent receivers; poor people are poor receivers.(#11) Rich people choose to get paid on results; poor people want to get paid for their time.(#12) Rich people think both (results and time); poor people think either or.(#13) Rich people focus on their net worth; poor people focus on their working income.(#14) Rich people manage their money well; poor people mismanage their money well.(#15) Rich people have their money work hard for them; poor people work hard for their money.(#16) Rich people act in spite of their fear; poor people let fear stop them.(#17) Rich people constantly learn and grow; poor people think they know it all.

Principles (The Foundation) of Personal Achievement

Thoughts are ThingsEverything anyone has ever achieved started off as nothing more than an idea in one person's mind.

Accurate ThinkingThe power of thought is the most dangerous or the most beneficial power available to man, depending on how it is used.

The Brain

Creative Vision / ImaginationCreative vision is developed by the free and fearless use of one’s imagination. It is not a miraculous quality with which one is gifted or is not gifted at birth.

The Sixth Sense

DesireThe starting point of all achievement.

The Sub-Conscious Mind / Auto-Suggestion

The Six Ghosts of Fear (Outwitting)

Positive Mental AttitudePositive mental attitude is the right mental attitude in all circumstances. Success attracts more success while failure attracts more failure.

Decision

Definiteness of PurposeDefiniteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. Without a purpose and a plan, people drift aimlessly through life.

Organized Planning

Applied FaithFaith is a state of mind through which your aims, desires, plans and purposes may be translated into their physical or financial equivalent.

Personal InitiativePersonal initiative is the power that inspires the completion of that which one begins. It is the power that starts all action. No person is free until he learns to do his own thinking and gains the courage to act on his own.

Mystery of Sex Transmutation

EnthusiasmEnthusiasm is faith in action. It is the intense emotion known as burning desire. It comes from within, although it radiates outwardly in the expression of one’s voice and countenance.

Self-Discipline / PersistenceSelf-discipline begins with the mastery of thought. If you do not control your thoughts, you cannot control your needs. Self-discipline calls for a balancing of the emotions of your heart with the reasoning faculty of your head.

Controlled AttentionControlled attention leads to mastery in any type of human endeavor, because it enables one to focus the powers of his mind upon the attainment of a definite objective and to keep it so directed at will.

Specialized Knowledge

HabitsDeveloping and establishing positive habits leads to peace of mind, health and financial security. You are where you are because of your established habits and thoughts and deeds.

Budgeting Time & MoneyTime and money are precious resources, and few people striving for success ever believe they possess either one in excess.

Pleasing PersonalityPersonality is the sum total of one’s mental, spiritual and physical traits and habits that distinguish one from all others. It is the factor that determines whether one is liked or disliked by others.

Going the Extra MileGoing the extra mile is the action of rendering more and better service than that for which you are presently paid. When you go the extra mile, the Law of Compensation comes into play.

TeamworkTeamwork is harmonious cooperation that is willing, voluntary and free. Whenever the spirit of teamwork is the dominating influence in business or industry, success is inevitable. Harmonious cooperation is a priceless asset that you can acquire in proportion to your giving.

Mastermind AllianceThe Mastermind principle consists of an alliance of two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a common definite objective. Success does not come without the cooperation of others.

Adversity & DefeatIndividual success usually is in exact proportion of the scope of the defeat the individual has experienced and mastered. Many so-called failures represent only a temporary defeat that may prove to be a blessing in disguise.

HealthSound health begins with a sound health consciousness, just as financial success begins with a prosperity consciousness. Without good health, nothing else in your life matters.

THE SEVENTEEN LESSONS COMPRISING

LAW OF SUCCESS:

INTRODUCTION TO THE MASTER MIND 31

A DEFINITE CHIEF AIM 123

SELF-CONFIDENCE 187

THE HABIT OF SAVING

INITIATIVE AND LEADERSHIP

IMAGINATION

ENTHUSIASM

SELF-CONTROL

THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR 557

A PLEASING PERSONALITY 609

ACCURATE THINKING 667

CONCENTRATION 723

COOPERATION

PROFITING BY FAILURE

TOLERANCE

THE GOLDEN RULE 943

THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF COSMIC HABITFORCE 1001

Napoleon Hill Links

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